Posts Tagged draw

I can’t recall if I posted this before, but for anyone who is entertained by such stuff, here’s what an unfinished Hubris cartoon looks like:

I print out these 8.5X14 sheets with boxes of the right height and width, divided into quarters and thirds. There are also lettering guides printed all over the space. I lay out my lettering, draw in the balloons and boxes, then fill in the space left with little drawings.

Then the thing gets slapped onto a huge light table drawing board that I have. A nice clean sheet of 100 lb, hot press surface slick thick paper gets laid over the penciled page, and all the ink gets put down. And the white-out. And then the correct ink, til the whole thing is done.

Then it goes in the scanner, it’s colored in photoshop, I save two different sizes, and I post the smaller one to the web here.

And if all that stuff sounds like it ought to take an hour, tops, well it sounds that way to me, too. And we’re both wrong.

I think I’ve mentioned Career Day here before. A school invites you to come and talk about what you do. You put together some handouts, some examples of what you do, and some kind of display. You go talk to a lot of kids for a few hours. Fun. And, as with anything, it’s the stuff that surprises you that’s worth repeating. What’s the #1 question I get from schoolkids? Take a moment to guess.

Here it is: “Did you draw all of this?” while indicating a table full of books, comics, ads, comic strips, etc. My usual answer is, “Yes. Cartooning is my career. I wouldn’t bring anyone else’s artwork to show you.” They usually turn to the kid next to them and say, “He drew ALL that!” I don’t know why.

Here’s my #1 question for the kids: “How many jobs within the field of cartooning can you name?” That usually gets them engaged. Most people assume that cartoonists do one job- the one that pops into that person’s mind when he or she is asked to name more than one. For elementary school kids, that usually means animation of some kind- movies or TV. For older kids, it might be comic books or videogame design or animation. What’s funniest is when the Career Fair is set up in a library and NO ONE can think to say, “Children’s Book Illustrator.”

My handouts are actually sort of a cheat sheet. There’s a long list of cartooning jobs/careers listed. Some kids will stand there with the handouts, never thinking to look at the words on it to answer my question. Sadly, there are occasionally kids who DO read the list, the light STILL doesn’t come on, and they still don’t have an answer. For those kids’ (and my) sake, I’m glad someone’s making them go to school where they can get a decent breakfast and lunch- and meet some people who can expand their worlds with them. Maybe something will click someday and their lives will be something they’re aware of, and that they have some control over.

Most kids, though, are fantastic to talk to. Did you ever explain… really explain… something to a kid who’s surprised that there’s information to be had? You learn as much about what you already thought you knew as the kid learns from you saying it. Always worth the effort, for everyone involved. Try it, if you can. Need a quick example that tried and true? Sit down and write complete instructions on how to tie your shoe. You know, instructions that are clear and to the point, that a kid can follow. I guarantee you’ll learn something about how you tie your shoes, and how you communicate… or don’t.

Friend of mine used to do this. Draw a turtle in the dirt if we needed rain by morning for a kayak trip. Uncanny how we seemed to see it work so often. Of course, we all REALLY, REALLY wanted it to, so we were happy to remember the hits and forget the misses.

As mentioned before, there are some local schoolkids that know what I do, and have discovered that I will ‘publish’ their cartoons. I think I’m going to impose a ‘theme’ rule- that the drawings have to have skateboards or bikes or suchlike in them from now on. Not that I don’t like DragonBall Z tracings, but … y’know… I don’t, much.

Here’s a couple of drawings, though- One’s from Eric Owens and the other’s by a young man who didn’t sign his cartoon. I usually return the cartoons stuck on the cover of a sort of sketchbook thingy, so maybe the sketchbook is more important to him than having his name on here. I’ll update when he tells me his name.

I may have mentioned that I do career day at a couple of schools around here. Add to that, walking a big dog to drop off and pick up my kids at school, and you get a few students who know what I do for a living. A young man named DeVarelier Mitchell shows me some of his artwork now and again. And he asked if I could publish a cartoon he drew. Of course, I said “yes”. Publishing isn’t what it used to be, apparently. When I was a kid, getting published meant knowing somebody who worked at the local paper, or at least at a screenprint shop that needed some work on the cheap. Now? Ask that kid’s dad, the one with the webcomic if he’ll pop it on there one Tuesday.

Anyhow, here’s DeVarelier’s cartoon. If you’d like to see it nice and large you’ll have to click on it, and then maybe click on it again until you get the huge version. I took the blue notebook lines out for you, and I made up a little sketchbook for DeV, so he can draw on unruled paper for a bit. I think he has a big future in mutant violence comics. I’m sure you agree.

Would you like to be ‘published’? I’d prefer things with skateboards and bikes and such in it, or maybe even Hubris or Kara or somebody, but hey, if you read the Hubris, the least I can do for you is use a Tuesday here and there to get you published… whatever that means in these days of digital media.